Saturday, November 24, 2007

Fast-Track Christianity


Hungry? Then don’t read this next entry. Kent Berghuis’ work Christian Fasting: A Theological Approach will drive you to consider skipping the next meal. That is why I read it during T-Day, in hopes that maybe I would temper my appetite and not overeat. It didn’t work. I have to be kind with Berghuis’ work, he is a friend of mine. Even if he wasn’t a friend, I don’t think I would trash this work. Berghuis does a good job following the practice of fasting through the OT, NT and Christ history. He raises the question, “why do evangelicals shy away from spiritual practices such as fasting.” His answer comes out of his survey and analysis, and he concludes by offering a theology towards fasting; Berghuis suggests that fasting focuses on Christ, unites the community, anticipates the return of Christ, and is connected with the well-being of the body.
The whole question of fasting seems to beg the larger question of the evangelical relationship with Catholicism/history and the larger church. The anti-Catholic reaction, largely a reaction to excess and corruption has led many groups of evangelical Protestants to reject anything that slightly smacks of high church and a rejection of a larger Christian tradition for the sake of Sola Scriptura (yet in Steve Harmon’s work Baptist Catholicity he makes the claim that even the claim Sola Scriptura is a claim to a specific traditional way of understanding community and practice). Berghuis shows how fasting is Biblical, but challenges a deeper assumption: not everything the Catholics do is anti-bible. Catholicism is deeply rooted in scripture, but a specific way of understanding and explaining scripture. A blind rejection of all things “papist” is a rejection of a rich part of the Christian story lived out. Secondly, just because the popular practice seems hypocritical does not mean it is, at its root, wrong. The popular practice of fasting has, from time to time, gone astray, for example, monks breaking their fast with a 4,700 calorie meal. Yet one should not judge the practice itself based on the way it is practiced. I know many evangelicals who misuse the extemporaneous prayer, pushing for their own agenda in a public setting, yet I would still advocate the un-scripted, free section of worship when one is praying on behalf of the congregation without the restriction of previously worded prayers. We need to follow Berghuis’ example, look at the practice in scripture, and in tradition before coming to a place where we accept or reject anything.
So in the end, I will fast, I will observe the liturgical calendar, I will engage in other spiritual disciplines that my colleagues may label as “papist.” There is a richness, an articulate devotion and a focus that is helpful and uplifting that I will embrace. I’ll not be so quick to judge…. isn’t such an approach biblical?

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Jab

saw this in the Christian Century (that libral smut...) and thought it was clever:

"I'm not sure who'll invent the cure for cancer, discover a new energy source, or genetically engineer a plant that will end starvation, but I bet it won't be an anti-Darwinian Christian"
- Philip Gulley, Porch Talk (HarperSanFrancisco)


From the Christian Century, November 13, 2007. pg. 7.

The stories we tell....


I like to preach. I think preaching is a central part of my identity as a pastor, and a person. It is as Rob Bell (from Mars Hill Church) described an art form. So to work on my preaching, I felt it would be good to learn about other preachers, and who better than to learn about St. Dominic. Ok, so there are many others to consider, but something about the Catholic understanding of chrism and preaching as a spiritual gift pulled me to Dominic. So I have been trying to learn a little bit about Dominic and his ilk. To start, I read St. Dominic by Eliza Allen Starr. This is an exert from a larger book, Patron Saints. It is an older and not at all academic work. The work swoons over Dominic, the wonderful miracles he performed, how perfect he was, etc... On the one hand, this wasn't exactly the bio I was looking for - there is probably some truth in the story, but a lot of apocropha. On the other hand, this portrayal offers to me a depiction of Dominic that is understood on the popular level (remember the difference between "popular Catholicism" and "Official Catholicism"). The stories told about Dominic, while they may not be true, speak to the ideals and images that many people celebrate about him. The stories we tell about anybody may or may not speak to the reality, but certainly speak to our own image of the reality. Truth be told, we cannot get a completely accurate bio; bias will always play a part. Yet we are called to own our bias and name its source and purpose. Starr's account claims a part of the Catholic tradition's embrace of Dominic.

With all of that said, not much was made of Dominic's preaching. So I didn't get much out of the work on that end. Dominic was said to take his studies very seriously and that is something I can relate to. So not a waste of time. I have one other, longer, work to read which I am sure will give me more to chew on.

Monday, November 05, 2007

the mess we call Baptists


It is no secret that the Baptist (specifically the American Baptists) are organizationally a mess. It is no secret that without a central power, an administrative hierarchy with power and authority over the local churches one will find chaos. This is not a secret because of the recent hullabaloo over the stance, or lack of a stance that the denomination has or has not taken via homosexuality. If only we had a bishop, or a pope, or even a governing board that could make doctrinal decisions, then we would be more streamlined, more focused, and would be better able to witness to the world; or at least some would argue.
What is a secret are the reasons why we (Baptists) exist in the manner in which we do. We claim to ideals and “distinctives” as if they were given to us by Christ, but seldom speak to the social-historical context from which they derive, or to the theological foundations upon which they are based. Such a weak claim to central identifying characteristics will make it easy to chip away at such ideas as church autonomy and priesthood of the believers (which I believe a hierarchy would be opposed to).
Enter the recently deceased Paul Harrison’s book Authority and Power in the Free Church Tradition. While this book was originally published in 1959, it still is relevant in many ways today. Harrison speaks of the idea of freedom, reminding the reader that the original focus of the Baptists was to focus on the freedom of God; he analyzes the confession to demonstrate this early stance of the Baptists. He then offers a sociological study of the Convention (now it is a denomination). The weakness is that his study was done in the 1950s, before the infamous, (and deadly) SCODS decision, yet his analysis of the 1907 formation of the denomination is apt and still current. Harrison is looking at the role of the executive minister in the denomination, but his analysis goes beyond that focus. Harrison questions the very foundation and nature of the denomination. Based on his analysis of the 1907 denominational formation, I wonder if he would be celebrating the centennial of the ABC, or instead scoffing and quoting Francis Wayland’s spiteful description of the festering carcasses of institutions on the landscape of Christendom. The sociological descriptions and sharp and to the point, his historical analysis is brilliant, and his overall analysis of Baptist polity of worth reading by every seminary student, pastor, and denominational stooge (executive).
In his conclusion, Harrison states that the priesthood of the believer, soul freedom, and local church autonomy must be held in tension with associational interdependence, and the rule of the community. It is a both/and, not an either or. So the mess is necessary and appropriate. It is a way to ensure not that we are allowing the believer to be free, but that we are staying out of the way of God. If God is not free, then we cannot be free. To ensure that the church does not become an burden, a barrier to the movement of the Lord, we need the chaos and the mess. Only then can the Holy Spirit be free.